


unbutton my shirt, i’ve a hard day (i hate my work)

by asphaltworld



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Again, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Everyone Is Alive, Halloween, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, billy pov, billy works in food service
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 17:16:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21256823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asphaltworld/pseuds/asphaltworld
Summary: Billy’s stuck working for a food delivery app on Halloween night to pay off a traffic ticket. Somebody in the rich part of town places a weird, annoying order. But he hoofs it over anyway, because he needs the cash.





	unbutton my shirt, i’ve a hard day (i hate my work)

**Author's Note:**

> some recommended listening for this story

Some neighborhoods are all pumpkins, and twinkling purple lights, and housewives dressed up in elaborate costumes hanging around on the sidewalk handing out paper cups of cider to crowds of brats. And others, fucking soulless McMansions towering three whole stories constructed entirely from shitty drywall and bad intentions, have not a paper bat, not a fucking gourd in sight. It’s all or nothing here in Indiana. It’s either Protestant fear of a good time or some hovering middle-aged woman angling for a photo in Good Housekeeping, with nothing in between. Before he moved here, every Halloween was ripe with possibilities for getting himself into stupid shit. He’d sneak out to the parade in West Hollywood, take in all that bare skin smeared in glitter and drenched in beer, and end the night running from the cops. It was fucking prime. And how sad is it to be nineteen and reminiscing on days gone by?

Billy’s idling in his car when he hears the ding, a notification that someone over in the Lochnora neighborhood requests his services. Fucking great, another smug rich idiot to cater to. With houses like that he can maybe expect a good tip. Earlier tonight he got tipped in weed. One benefit of this garbage scheduling. But it’s work tonight or not make rent, and well. He wants to make rent. Surge pricing should help.

Hopper, the bastard, gave him that ticket a couple weeks back, just to throw his weight around. 

Like, technically, the point of this job is that he doesn’t have to work when he doesn’t want to but the realities of capitalism are, everyone has to work when they don’t want to. So he checks the order.

The order on his screen is kind of fucking bizarre but he hasn’t been at this that long, so who knows, maybe the average American is a fucking freak. 

The guy wants a pumpkin pie, chow fun and beef broccoli from Yum Cha... and these edibles from fucking Illinois? Billy knows that brand, has gone over himself a few times to pick them up. He kept a hand on his necklace the entire way back, praying for Indiana cops to go against their nature for once and not pull him over. 

The weed’s definitely not happening. Billy sends him a little order update, striking that off the list. Why would the app even allow that? Fucking annoying. 

He starts up the car and cruises over to the plaza where the Chinese place and the supermarket are crowded together, mercifully. Billy rolls the windows down a little, lets the chilly October air in and pretends it smells like cinnamon and apples. It definitely smells like leaves. Damp leaves and some kind of herb, maybe. It sends a little thrill through him, anticipation even though he basically knows exactly how tonight is gonna go down. Driving around blasting his music all night, waiting til orders die down to go home and blaze up. It’s not bad as far as normal nights go, but a really shitty Halloween. 

He can’t exactly do kegstands anymore, after his accident, but it’s not like there aren’t other things to do at a party. He can still pick up whoever he wants, still outdrink anyone. 

The Chinese restaurant is full of loud families and Billy can’t wait to get out of there, but he has to wait on the peeling chair they keep by the door for delivery boys like him. He watches the little bamboo fountain across from him bubble and froth. Five minutes go by and he tries to step out for a cigarette, but the cashier stops him, says, “Almost ready!” Another several minutes go by before she can actually hand it to him. She smiles big, and Billy grits his teeth. 

The market is blessedly empty, and he spots a pumpkin pie right away. It takes him less than five minutes to get out of there.

On the drive over there are a bunch of little hick kids wandering around in the middle of the road like they belong there. Billy does his part to give them a healthy respect for the road by flashing his lights, and then lays on the horn. Like if he did that, back home as a little kid? He’d be dead. 

He pulls up to the address and it’s this huge house with zero lights in the windows? He just can’t see any. But he grabs the bags and rings the doorbell. 

Harrington, like from his high school, grabs the bags and roots through them immediately. 

“Hargrove?” Steve does a double take. Then: ” Where’s my fucking weed?” even though Billy literally fucking told him not to expect it, via the app. He sounds pissy and a sickly sweet smell of booze wafts off him.

“I’m not driving thirty miles to get you weed on Halloween night, for DineDash pay.” It’s also probably not legal, but Billy’s not gonna say that and look like a pussy in front of Steve Harrington.

“Yeah, and I’m not tipping the guy who has only half my fucking order.” 

“God, you’re really not a happy drunk, are you?” Steve tries to close the door, then, but Billy’s faster and he gets his foot in the door.

“Hey, fuck no. You’re not closing this door.” Steve’s just looking at him blankly, and Billy doesn’t know why he says it, but he goes, “I am, however, accepting beer for tips on this lovely night.” 

He says it because he’s curious, and he never got to go to any of those legendary Harrington parties. He says it like they’re still basketball rivals, and there’s nothing more serious going on in their lives than Billy having an inconvenient hard-on for his teammate. 

“I also don’t get paid unless you confirm that you got the food, so. I’m gonna need you to do that.” 

Steve swings the door open, a motion with his whole body, and wanders away. Billy follows because hey, if there’s any chance of him finding something fucked up tonight, it’s here. Steve just gives off that vibe. There’s something off about him, and it’s hard to believe he was ever well-liked in Hawkins. He’s got this almost otherworldly feeling about him, the taint of something strange. 

Spending that much time alone will probably do that to you. 

“Hey, take your fucking shoes off,” Steve says. Jerking Billy back to the present, where he’s hanging out with the only rich pariah in this fucked up little town. 

“There’s my favorite King Steve,” Billy says. He wears his boots into the house anyway. 

“Okay, so I don’t know exactly what you’re expecting, but I’m sitting on the couch. Eating this food, alone. Watching movies,” Steve says flatly. On his coffee table, though, is a bright purple drink with ice cubes floating in it. He sprawls out on the couch and gets his drink in his hand. It’s a depressingly practiced move, like he’s spent years lying back in this exact spot in front of the television, a drink in his hand. It almost, almost reminds Billy of Neil, but he pushes the thought away before the front of his brain has a chance to register, it so his night’s not ruined.

“Hey, Harrington, what’s that? Do I get one, too?”

“Sure, yeah. There’s a pitcher in the fridge.” 

Steve doesn’t tell him where the fridge is, so Billy has to go into the dining room, another room exactly like the dining room but slightly fancier, then a room with gym equipment that has clothes and plastic bags piled on every surface. Finally he steps into a pristine white kitchen with a marble island at the center and a stainless steel fridge. He opens all the top cabinets nearest to the fridge, looking for cups. There’s a salad spinner, an air fryer, something called a spiralizer, two VitaMixes and a bunch of other junk, all in their boxes. But there are no fucking glasses.  
Billy starts on the bottom row of cabinets, letting them all bang open loudly so maybe the host here will hear him struggling and come and point shit out, the way you’re supposed to when someone comes over and you have a cavernous kitchen filled with useless appliances. He finds a toaster, novelty pans, a waffle press. 

“What the fuck is all this,” Billy’s muttering to himself, when he looks up and sees that Steve is in the doorway, watching him. Steve walks over to the island and there is storage inside, full of mugs and glasses of all kinds. He hands Billy a tall glass. 

“The drinks are on the right side,” Steve explains. “You can get ice from the dispenser,” he tells Billy.

“Yeah, I know that,” Billy snaps. “I’ve been in a house before.” 

“It really doesn’t look like it. Did a poltergeist visit us? Why are all the cabinets open?” 

Billy felt like it was a really clever way to keep track of which cabinets he’d already tried, actually. 

“Why do you have all these kitchen tools? Have any of them even been opened?” Billy counters.

“Marta likes to keep stuff in their boxes, so.”

“And that is... your mom?”

Steve shifts. “No, more like housekeeper. But she gets the job done, right?” 

Billy makes a face of disgust so he doesn’t have to say anything that’ll get him kicked out of here. 

As they’re settling onto the couch, Billy slips his boots off. 

There’s just enough space between them that Billy can’t feel the heat coming off Steve, but he imagines what it would feel like. Just brushing up against his smooth skin, those soft hairs on his arms. He takes a long drink, because he has a long way to go to catch up with Steve, and asks, “So what the fuck are you even doing, tonight?”

“Just watching scary movies alone, like an idiot.” Steve laughs at himself, but his heart doesn’t really seem to be in it. It’s kind of pathetic. Billy feels embarrassed for him.

“Sounds fine to me,” Billy says. He loves scary movies. He likes to watch people getting away from their worst fears, bruised but alive. The moment they look behind them, in the car or running through the forest or whatever, and know they’ve outrun it, it’s a priceless look. 

“Yeah, I used to laugh at all my girly dates about their little screams and shit at scary movies? Then something happened and like, my tolerance is not what it once was. You know?” He shifts, abruptly, from staring at his beer can, swirling it around moodily, to meet Billy’s eyes. They’re soft and brown and he looks chilled out, confident even though what he’s saying should be embarrassing. 

Billy’s stomach lurches like, oh yeah, right, his girly fucking dates. All of them. 

Billy laughs and looks away, turns his attention to the TV screen. “What, even stuff like this? This old-ass movie? Come on, the concept probably wasn’t even scary back then. What is this called?” 

“It’s The Blob,” Steve says, and down the rest of his drink. Billy laughs some more.

“How would something like this even go down? I just, I can’t get scared by some fucking gelatin goo oozing around.”

“You’d think so, right? It just. Reminds me of something.” Steve looks actually, genuinely creeped out. No wonder he’s getting fucked up. Billy almost wants to offer him some of the weed, but also, like, it’s gonna take more than puppy dog eyes. “Just a Hawkins thing.”

“One of the million, right? This place is fucked up. You guys destroyed a goddamn mall in one summer.” Steve stays quiet.

“Seriously, I saw it afterward, and it was just...a pile of garbage.”

“You remember that?” Steve says suddenly.

“Yeah, I remember that.” Billy rolls his eyes. “It was only like a year ago. I was here, in the promised land. I saw the papers. I think Tommy even convinced me to go out and see it? Even when I was still all busted up. I like, I can remember the smell. That shit’s all hazy, though.” 

“Yeah, okay.” 

They keep watching The Blob. It like, oozes and creeps and whatever else across the floor. It’s getting to Billy, though. It reminds him of being 16 and having his first edible, egged on by some older friends to scarf the whole thing. He feels the world kind of going lopsided around him, but he hasn’t fucking smoked anything. Onscreen, the blob just keeps spreading. The feeling tips over into nausea pretty soon.

“What was in that drink? Oh my Christ,” Billy says, scrambling off the couch. He’s going to puke, going to puke all over Steve fucking Harrington’s nice couch and the thick pile rug under the coffee table. He stumbles around blindly, and then he feels Steve alongside him, a warm, benevolent guide. When he feels tile under his feet, he collapses onto his knees. 

“King Steve, what the fuck is going on,” Billy says, but not before he has his hands gripped onto the toilet and his head positioned. This is not his first fucking rodeo. 

“I really don’t know,” he says, his voice floating over. 

“Did you feed me fucking lean,” Billy scrapes out. God, he hates being drugged. “Is that it?”

“Jesus Christ! No, Billy. God. It’s just, it’s blue drink mixed with red drink. Real girly shit. Like, blue curacao? You know?”

“Mmmf.” And sure, the last time he drank codeine it didn’t feel like this. It’s hard to tell, though. 

“You gonna live, Billy? Should I get you some water?” Steve probes.

“Okay.” Even now that he’s away from it, the thought of the movie is making him dizzy. He lets go of the cold, gross porcelain to stare at the wall, though. He hasn’t seen a bathroom this sterile (or maybe it’s just clean) since he was in the hospital last fall. He missed the first couple weeks of school, still getting over the car crash he got himself into, and it was one of the worst times of his life. There was nothing to do, and he even started looking forward to Max visiting, usually with one of her idiot friends. His phone was gone, and Neil obviously wasn’t getting him a new one. The social worker came to tell him he couldn’t go home, that they would be placing him in a home to recover during outpatient. He’d just turned 18. 

Eventually Steve comes back and hands him a cup of water.

“Here you go, your highness,” Steve says. He touches lightly between Billy’s shoulder blades as Billy takes his first sip, and he almost chokes. The touch feels weird, reminds Billy of the kind of touch he’s only had while getting fucked. Sitting on a lap, or lying down on his stomach. Flat on his back occasionally, staring up at the black sky through the sunroof of a car. Thinking it looks really empty up there. 

And it reminds him of something else, too. All throughout his time in the hospital, they told him about the car crash and how it was the worst they’d seen in Hawkins in years. It fucked with one of his kidneys and some metal stabbed through him and he still gets chest pain. But he has this memory of staring up at a high glass ceiling like a cathedral. It’s from that night, and it cuts into his memory of being in the car crash. It feels like it went on for a long time, like someone left him there to fucking die. 

“Hey, Steve?” Billy says, realizing this is maybe the first time he’s called him Steve to his face. Not that he’s had many opportunities recently.

“What?”

“Do you remember what the ceiling of Starcourt Mall looked like?”

Steve’s quiet for a couple seconds too long. As he delivered the water, he looked kind of proud, kind of hassled. He probably wasn’t expecting to spend the night taking care of his DineDash delivery boy or whatever, but he loves any chance to be chivalrous. He looks apprehensive, now, in a different way. 

“It looked kind of like a greenhouse,” he says vaguely. 

“Yeah, okay,” Billy says. “Thought so.” 

Steve’s just standing at the door, stock fucking still as Billy sits upright, gets himself together. He’s probably staring but Billy can’t bring himself to check. He fixes his eyes on the tile. 

“Hey, I’m gonna close the door for a sec, so. Clear out.”

Steve peels himself off the doorframe, says, “Don’t die, Hargrove,” and saunters off to the living room.

**Author's Note:**

> REALLY wanted to finish this for halloween but life happened... i have more written so i should be able to wrap this up soon though!  
thanks for reading my festive contribution to fandom.  
title from htrk's "rentboy"


End file.
